Torch Song
by artsavage
Summary: Children are disappearing in Durango, Colorado. Dean starts to take the case a bit too personally. Set between "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" and "Simon Said." WARNINGS: Violence toward children. Dean finds lots of bar hookups.
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings:** Violence toward children. Dean finds some messed-up sex. Not a particularly happy tale.

**A/N:** I've never been to Colorado, and am not an expert on the local landscape or cultures. Though I tried to research as much as possible using Teh Intarwebs, travel books, and James D. Doss's mystery novels, inaccuracies may ensue. I apologize for any inadvertent travesties. If anyone happens to notice errors – typos or factual – please let me know!

Title taken from Charles Bowden's essay of the same name (_Harper's Magazine_, August 1998: 43-54).

* * *

The only soap in the girl's bathroom was some fruity body wash, mango-berry surprise or some shit. Dean Winchester was just glad she slept through his shower, didn't stir when he slipped out the door.

Another prairie dawn, another flat town. A light frost glittered in the grass, on rooftops and windshields. Cold wind whipped through the bare limbs of a few scrawny maple trees, clattering the branches like bones, carrying the scents of fried diner food and highway exhaust. Dean sucked in a lungful of crisp air, squinted at the smeared palette of the sky, comparing silhouetted roadside signs to get his bearings. He crunched through the sad strip of apartment-house grass; the bootprints he left would fade before noon.

Home this week was the Starlite Motor Lodge. Though most of the neon had burned out long ago, the peaks of the star-shaped sign guided Dean's way. He cut through side streets and empty parking lots, the vague memory of stumbling the same route the night before skulking around in a Jack Daniels haze. He remembered the girl's face, her tipsy laugh, the way her chest flushed from alcohol and arousal. Could not for the life of him recall her name.

Thankfully, last night's destination was within walking distance of the main drag and the motel. The Impala was still parked in front of room eleven. At least he'd had sense enough not to drive anywhere.

He knew Sam would be pissed. Bar hookups were one thing; ditching your brother without explanation and spending the night with said hookup was another. There'd been too much weirdness, too many close calls the last few months, to take off like that without checking in. Maybe a peace offering was in order.

Dean crossed the four-lane state route, stepped into the dry forced air of the gas station Stop-N-Rob. The place smelled of microwaved food and cigarette smoke, like a breakfast burrito in an ashtray. Rows of screaming buy-me-bright colors made the ache behind his eyes pound just a little bit harder.

It was early enough that the coffee was still fresh, the donuts not too picked-over. He packed a variety into a to-go box: cream- and jelly-filled, plain glazed, blueberry, bear claws. Poured two coffees: one black, one pansy hazelnut. At the counter, he added a couple of newspapers to the pile, local and regional, then paid up and tried to figure out how to balance the whole mess.

Back at the room, he set the coffee down long enough to let himself in. Sam's bed was empty, the shower running. Dean settled at the room's small table with the newspapers and a cherry-filled donut. By the time Sam emerged from the bathroom, followed by a roiling cloud of steam, Dean's fingers were covered in newsprint and sticky glaze. "Hey," he said.

"Hey." Sam took one last swipe at his hair with his towel, then started pulling on his clothes. If the hard set to his jaw hadn't given away his anger, his too-neutral tone would have done the job. "Good time last night?" Less a question than a dig.

Dean shrugged, washed down his last bite with the bitter Kwik-E-Mart brew. "Think I found us a case."

Sam pulled on his button-down, struggling a bit as the cuff snagged on his cast. "Yeah?"

Dean folded the paper back, pushed it across the table. Tapped the headline: _Search for Durango boy heads into third day_.

Sam pulled out the second chair to sit across from Dean. He pried the lid off his coffee, gave it a suspicious sniff before he drank. Scanned the article. "Huh. No sign of forced entry. No witnesses. No evidence of an intruder. Does sound pretty weird."

Dean realized he'd been tensed for a fight, half expecting Sam to question his hunch. He looked down at his coffee. "Less than a day's drive."

Sam nodded, took a big bite of a crumbling bear claw. "Let's check it out."

"Soon as you finish up, we'll get a move on." Dean wiped his sticky hands on his jeans, stood to start packing. If they made check-out time, the Visa card of Kerry King would be spared the charge for an extra night.

* * *

Flat farmlands to the peaks of the Rockies in less than a day. Sam found the change jarring, surreal, but no more so than the rest of their lives.

He leaned forward, perched on the edge of a hard floral-print couch, a fine china teacup looking absurdly small cradled in one hand. He shifted his right hand, encumbered by that clunky cast, trying to figure out a less-awkward position. "Thank you for taking the time to talk to us, Mrs. Crawford," he said. "I know this is hard for you, but – "

Framed by a big bay window, the dark-haired woman hunched in the matching wing chair looked as slight and pale as her china. "No, that's all right. I'll talk to anyone necessary, as many times as necessary, if it will help find Ethan."

Mindy Crawford's eight-year-old son had disappeared three nights earlier, vanished from his bedroom sometime between the end of the Broncos game and 6:30 the next morning, when Mindy had gone to wake him for school. There was no sign of a break-in. The alarm system had not been tripped. The family's golden retriever had not whimpered, growled, or barked.

Of course, Sam suspected this dog – Bailey, according to its embroidered collar – would likely try to lick an intruder to death. Currently, the dog had wedged its snout under Dean's hand, nosing him each time he stopped scratching its ears. At least it wasn't humping any legs – dog hair would be a bitch to get out of their good suits.

Sam cleared his throat, tried to get back on track. "Mrs. Crawford, do you recall any strange things happening in the last few weeks?"

"You mean like hang-up phone calls or strange cars driving past? I've been racking my brain ever since the detectives asked, and I can't think of a thing. No custody disputes, no creepy soccer coaches . . ."

Dean shoved the dog's snout away from his crotch, making a valiant effort to look serious. "What about anything odd around the house? Lights flickering? Maybe weird noises . . . even smells?"

Mindy Crawford frowned, scrunched up her pert face. "No, nothing like that."

Sam set his cup down in its matching saucer. "Would it be possible for us to see Ethan's room?"

The kid was into sports the way only a young boy can be, his room decorated in posters and pennants: Broncos, Avalanche, Rockies. A hockey stick leaned in one corner; a soccer ball peeked out from under the bed. Sam made a perfunctory search of the closet and dresser drawers, already left rifled by the local cops, or maybe just the housekeeping skills of an eight-year-old boy.

Dean swept the room for EMF, picking up minor blips – probably just the house's wiring, the boy's computer. He stooped to examine the windowsill.

"Anything?" Sam asked.

"Not yet." Dean studied the latch, then slid the window open, scanned the area outside. A crisp breeze fanned the curtains. "Dude, there's no trees or drainpipes – no way for anyone to get up or down."

Sam joined him at the window, took in the view. To the east were rows of identical suburban homes. To the west, a treeline of tall pines edged up to the immaculately trimmed backyard, apparently the end of the subdivision: beyond, he could see nothing but trees till the horizon was cut off by the mountains.

Sam glanced toward the doorway, making sure Mrs. Crawford was out of earshot. He kept his voice low. "I don't know if this is our kind of thing, Dean. The woods are so close – lot of things can happen to a kid out there."

"Maybe." Dean shut and latched the window. "Still. Something about it just doesn't add up." He rubbed at his forehead, at the thin line of a scar that was now only visible in just the right light. Probably didn't even realize he was doing it.

Sam shoved away the memories that tried to crowd in. Turned to leave, so Dean wouldn't see anything in his face. "Guess we can hit the library," he said. "Do a little more digging. Make sure."

Back downstairs, they found Mindy Crawford taking out her frustrations on the evening's dinner, pounding chicken with a mallet. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her smile too tight. They thanked her for her time, assured her they'd be doing everything they could.

She nodded, wiped at her nose with the back of one yellow-gloved hand. "I just can't imagine what could have happened. Ethan's such a good boy. The police think he wandered off into the woods, but he knows better than that, especially since that other boy went missing."

Sam shot a glance over at Dean. "What other boy?" he asked.

* * *

Dean pulled the Impala to the curb and threw it in park. The house just ahead and to the right was an aging Cape Cod, white paint gone gray, green shutters faded and peeling. The small yard was dead and brown but for a few hardy weeds; a battered Nerf football lay forgotten under a scraggly bush.

Nine-year-old Jake Heffron had been missing for six weeks, give or take a few days. No one was really sure, because his mother and stepfather had been too busy cooking and using meth to notice he was gone. It was a neighbor, an elderly woman Jake sometimes helped with cleaning and errands, who finally called the police. With the parents in jail and the boy's siblings in foster care, the empty house made for an easy B&E.

That was the only bright side to the situation.

Sam kept watch while Dean picked the lock, a cheap-ass thing that took about ten seconds to crack. Inside, the place still had that cat-piss smell peculiar to meth-making operations. The cramped rooms were littered with the detritus of the occupants' lives, wrinkled clothing, broken dishes, beer cans, toys, tabloid magazines: clearly the result of the cops' search, though Dean had the sneaking suspicion these folks were no great shakes when it came to housekeeping in the first place. He kicked aside a TV tray and an empty popcorn tin, headed down the short hall while Sam took the living room and kitchen.

Two bedrooms for a family of six, the parents – though Dean used the term loosely – and four kids; the exact configuration of steps and halves, he couldn't recall. The younger two kids, ages three and five, had shared the back bedroom. No real beds; the mattresses were set on the scarred hardwood floor. Dean swept the small room for EMF, peered into the closet, examined the window. Nothing unusual.

Across the hall, the parents' bedroom had been more thoroughly tossed, the mattress and box springs slit open, dresser drawers emptied onto the floor. Amidst the scattered contents of the woman's underwear drawer were a couple of day-glo dildoes, a pair of handcuffs, an economy-size bottle of Astroglide.

Dean crossed the hall to the attic stairs, footfalls kept to the outer edge of the steps out of long habit. The two older children, Jake and his eleven-year-old brother, had shared the attic. Like the kids' room downstairs, twin mattresses lay on the floor, covered by rumpled dinosaur-print sheets. Books and toys were scattered in one corner; the drawers of a multicolored plastic dresser had been rummaged through.

Dean stooped under the eaves, moved to the center of the room to stand at full height. The EMF meter stayed silent, the only activity slight blips that could easily be explained by the house's wiring. He knelt by the low window, looked out into the backyard. In the center of a circle of worn grass, a limp chain was tethered to a metal stake. Dean was willing to bet there'd been no embroidered collars for this family's dog.

Like the Crawford house, there was no sign of anything hinky. No scratches at the windowsill, no spoor of sulfur. Dean stood, brushed dust and cat hair from his knees.

Sam met him at the bottom of the stairs. "Anything?"

Dean shook his head. "You?"

"Zilch."

They stepped out into blinding sunshine. Dean locked and closed the door behind him, wiped the doorknob for prints, discreetly tucking the handkerchief away as they headed down the front walk.

A neighbor getting out of his car across the street gave them the fish-eye, seemed to hesitate, then finally trotted toward them. Sam and Dean stopped on the sidewalk, halfway back to the Impala, put on the disinterested air of G-men.

The man wore a rent-a-cop's uniform – from a distance, it looked real enough, but up close, the patch on his sleeve read POWERS SECURITY SERVICES. Tanned face, Republican hair: short and neat. Fit enough looking guy, maybe an inch or two shorter than Dean. Not built, but not fat – the kind of guy who might do a lot of hiking on weekends.

"Hello there," the guy said with a smile, pale eyes squinted against the sun. "I suppose you fellas are here about the Heffrons. You, uh, county or state?"

"Bureau," Dean said. He and Sam flashed their fake badges, perfectly synchronized.

"Oh!" The guy's eyes went wide. "Wow. I didn't realize the case merited that kind of attention."

Dean took the lead, a hard tone for the man's man. "We're investigating the possibility that the Heffron boy's disappearance may be connected to another case."

"You mean that boy from the suburbs?"

Sam's turn: silent heavy. "We're not at liberty to say."

"Oh, right, of course." The man nodded as if the non-answer had confirmed a suspicion.

Dean put his hands on his hips, raked the guy up and down with cop's eyes. "So tell me, Mr . . ."

"Chesley. Grant Chesley." He held out a hand that both brothers ignored.

"So tell me, Mr. Chesley," Dean said, "what do you think happened to that boy?"

"Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about," Chesley said. "I know the sheriff says that Jake probably ran away, or wandered off into the woods. But personally, I think there's some kind of animal on the loose, something they're not telling us about. Mountain lion, bear, I don't know. But there've been a lot of pets missing in the neighborhood. Big dogs, some of 'em. It's not too much of a stretch to think something like that would go for a kid."

Sam asked, "Have you seen or heard any signs of an animal like that? Strange noises or tracks, pets acting funny?"

"Well, now that you mention it, I did hear something rattling around in the trash cans last week. Thought it was just a raccoon, but . . ." He shrugged. "Who knows?"

Dean watched the man, kept his face flat. "What about people?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, you're probably an observant guy." Dean nodded toward the security company's logo. A little bit of flattery never hurt. "You seen any creepy guys hanging around? Strange cars cruising the neighborhood?"

Chesley frowned. "Nothing really comes to mind. I mean, this is a pretty quiet place. When we found out the Heffrons were making meth, right under our noses – well, it came as quite a shock. Guess it just goes to show you never really know anybody."

"Guess not." Dean faked a smile. "So if we have any more questions for you – "

"You know where to find me." Chesley gestured toward his house, jogged back across the street.

They watched as the man let himself into his house. Then Sam said, "Well, what do you think? Should we keep digging, or is this one a bust?"

Dean stood with his hands on his hips, stared out at the brush and dark pines that encroached on the Heffrons' yard. Plenty of things didn't sit right, but was this just a sad situation, or was it a legitimate hunt? He turned back to Sam. "Let's talk to the old lady."

Betty Sands lived in a little bungalow two doors down, better kept than most houses on the block. Summer was hanging on in her yard, a few plants still flowering. Sam and Dean found the woman tending the rose bushes that lined the driveway, snipping spent blooms with a small pair of shears. "Help you boys with something?" she asked, a slight southern lilt to her speech.

Their fake Bureau I.D.s were met with a raised eyebrow and a frown. Dean felt like a revenuer who'd just walked into a speakeasy. No bullshit, then. "We'd like to ask you some questions about Jake Heffron," he said.

The hard look didn't soften. "You mean someone's finally decided to pay attention?"

Sam put on his serious face, or as Dean thought of it, his constipated face. "We're trying to determine whether Jake's disappearance might be connected to another case."

Dark eyes glittered in her tanned face. " 'Bout time. It only took four children going missing for you fellas to do something."

Dean's hands went cold; his face felt numb. _"Four?"_

She must have heard something honest in his tone. She slipped the shears into a sheath on her belt, wiped her hands on her apron. Gestured direction with a nod of her head. The brothers followed her into the backyard.

They sat on wicker chairs under an arbor flanked by bird feeders, a few sunset-colored climbing roses still blooming overhead. Betty Sands served sugar cookies and lemonade but didn't lose the suspicious gaze. "The police and the newspapers don't want to talk about it," she began, "but when four children have disappeared from this town in less than six months, there's something very wrong going on.

"The first one was a Ute boy, twelve years old, I believe. The police said he ran away, even though his mother insisted none of his things were gone. Then there was a little Mexican boy, just turned seven. His parents are illegal, so they were afraid to report him missing. Some of us down at the church got together a search party, and eventually the authorities got involved. Sheriff Roberts figured the boy wandered off into the woods – happens now and then. Kids, or even drunk grown-ups." A wry smile framed the last two words. "Sometimes they turn up safe, sometimes not. But no one ever found a trace of that boy."

She paused, looked from Dean to Sam and back again, as if gauging their intent. "When Jake didn't come around for a few days, I thought at first it was just more of the usual. His good-for-nothing mother was on a bender, and Jake was looking after the young ones. Or maybe his older stepbrother had beat the tar out of him again – that Curtis has always been a mean little bastard.

"But the closer it got to Halloween, I knew something was wrong." She nodded toward a vegetable patch, mostly cleared now except for a few bright orange pumpkins still on the vine. "Jake helped me plant those back in the spring. I've never seen a boy so excited as when those pumpkins started to grow. He came to check on 'em almost every day, picked the bugs off 'em, babied 'em through the heat of summer. He was gonna surprise his little sisters with 'em."

Bumblebees buzzed in the roses overhead. Dean leaned into the dappled sunlight but still felt a chill. He stared down at his untouched lemonade. Beads of condensation slipped down the glass, trailed cold and wet over his fingers.

Sam gave his knee a slight nudge – _Hey, pay attention_ – but words wouldn't come. Another beat of awkward silence, then Sam cleared his throat, took the lead. "So what do you think happened to Jake?"

"Honestly?" Betty sighed, shook her head. "I suppose it's possible he went into the woods and had some kind of accident, or met up with a mountain lion – though I doubt he'd wander off by himself. He'd just gone on one of those nature hikes the Y puts on, tells kids about the dangers of the forest. It could be that his so-called parents did something to him. Could be a stranger took him. All I know is that he didn't leave on his own."

"Your neighbor across the street, Mr. Chesley, thought an animal might be responsible. Said there've been a lot of pets going missing as well."

"That's true. The Perssons' Airedale disappeared a couple of months ago. Think the Fintons lost a cat, too. I haven't heard of anyone finding strange tracks or anything, but there are plenty of nasty things out there in the woods."

Sam peppered her with a few more questions, the same kind of things they'd asked Chesley – any weird noises, any neighborhood perverts? – but didn't get anything new.

Betty Sands escorted them back to her driveway, pulled her shears, but didn't get back to the job. "I just can't abide bad things happening to a sweet boy like Jake," she said, "when all the evil in the world passes right on by that little shit Curtis." She sighed, shook her head. "Damn shame."

* * *

Dark bar, déjà vu. A haze of cigarette smoke haloed dim lights; the room echoed with the hum of conversation, the sharp crack of a cueball breaking a rack. Creedence played on the jukebox, "Tombstone Shadow." Across the booth, Dean's fingers drummed along on the tabletop.

Sam closed the laptop, pushed it aside while the waitress covered their table with sandwiches and beer, onion rings, cheese fries. He was starving, tucked into his turkey club right away, eyes still straying to the newspaper articles he'd printed out that afternoon.

It took a whole cycle of _SportsCenter_ on the overhead TV for him to notice Dean had spent more time with his beer than with his food. The bacon cheeseburger on Dean's plate wasn't even half gone.

While Dean's gaze was fixed on a TV trivia game somewhere over Sam's shoulder, Sam took the opportunity to study his brother unnoticed. Too pale, too thin. There was a tension in Dean's shoulders, in his clenched jaw: wound just a little too tight. While Sam watched, he looked down at the table, rubbed at that faint scar again.

Sam leaned back in his chair, took a long pull from his beer, Dean's pain a reminder of his own abysmal failure at playing normal. Normal people talked about their feelings. Didn't keep everything bottled up till the inevitable explosion. At school, he'd been the sensitive guy, everybody's friend, the shoulder to cry on. Always willing to listen. Always full of good advice.

What a fucking joke. All that time, he'd kept his real self hidden from the people he called friends. Played a role. And when it really counted, when Dean had finally opened up, Sam had only been able to listen in numb silence, too much of a fraud to offer a shred of comfort – not a touch, not a word. He'd sat like a lump on the Impala's warm hood, staring unseeing at the sun-dappled road and pine-covered mountains, till Dean scrubbed a hand over his face, slid back behind the wheel without another word.

So, yeah, way to go, Sam, he told himself. Carrying on the proud tradition of Dean giving someone his trust only to get stomped on yet again. The worst thing about it was he had no idea how to fix things. He could spout platitudes with the best of 'em, but as often as Dean played dumb, he was anything but, would see right through it. There were no words that could make things better, and Dean would likely rather deck him than hug him. Though Sam was loath to admit it, it seemed he'd have to fall back on that other time-honored Winchester tradition: avoiding the subject.

"So what do you think?" Sam said. "We looking for a mountain lion here, or something far more sinister?"

He cursed himself for the snark that shaped his tone, but Dean didn't seem to notice, just glanced up blearily, fatigue written in the shadows beneath his eyes. "I dunno, man. You get anything from the police reports?"

Sam shuffled through his papers till he found the printouts from the hacked cop-shop network. He passed them across to Dean. "Take a look. Things do look pretty funky. No evidence of abduction in any of the cases, no animal tracks near the kids' homes, and no real proof that any of them left on their own. The only problem is there's no evidence of anything else, either."

"That," Dean said, eyes fixed on the reports, "and cops who don't give a shit unless it's a white kid from the suburbs."

Damn, where had that come from? Sam's eyebrows shot up, but he steered around the comment. "Well, at any rate, they've got no idea what they're looking for, supernatural or otherwise. Maybe we should try to eliminate some possibilities, go from there."

Dean nodded, drummed his fingers on the table. "I don't think any of these kids ran away."

Sam had to agree, but played devil's advocate. "Even the oldest one? What makes you so sure?"

"Look at this town, Sam. It's too small. There's not exactly a place for runaways to go. Even if they decided to try a bigger city, most kids that young wouldn't have any idea how to get there."

"Bus ticket?"

"Town this size, nobody'd sell to a kid, not these days."

"Hitchhiking?"

"Doubtful. A year or two older, it'd be a real possibility, but . . ." Dean frowned into his beer. "Besides, kids that young, from a place like this, do not know what it takes to live on the streets. They'd start out with a bindle slung over their shoulder straight out of _Tom & Jerry_, and come crawling back about six hours later."

God. Sam hadn't thought about that, either.

Didn't much want to.

That brought to mind some other unpleasant possibilities. "What about the parents?" Sam asked. "Think it could be abuse gone bad?"

Dean cocked an eyebrow. "Four families?"

"Maybe the parents were possessed?"

"We would have found _something_ – EMF, sulfur."

"Garden variety pedophile?"

Dean rubbed a hand across his mouth, pushed his plate away. "Possible."

Sam waited for elaboration that didn't come. The waitress swung by to drop off two more beers and clear their plates. Dean didn't even ask for a go-box for the cheese fries. Sam felt a twinge of worry in his gut. Tried to push it away. "So where do you think we should start?"

Dean shrugged, took a long pull from his new beer. "Local legends, I guess. Something in the woods seems like the most plausible choice."

"I already checked Dad's journal; he didn't have anything on the area."

Silence. Dean picked at the label on his bottle.

Great. Another forbidden subject. Now that Sam thought about it, he couldn't recall Dean even touching the journal since . . .

Since.

He scrubbed his good hand over his face, raked back his hair. They weren't going to get anywhere on the case tonight; the library and historical society, maybe the county clerk's office, would be the next logical step. Local legends, the history of the land, other unsolved disappearances – those were the bread and butter of their work, and they were all nine-to-five missions. Maybe the best thing right now would be to get a good night's sleep, start fresh in the morning.

He started gathering up his printouts. "I'm gonna head back," he said. "You coming?"

Dean's eyes drifted around the room, gauging prospects. "Think I'll stick around for a bit." He pasted on a leering grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Don't wait up."

* * *

Dean had always slept a soldier's sleep: wherever and whenever he could.

Lately, it just wasn't happening. He'd spent far too many nights counting tiles in motel ceilings, watching the sweep of highway headlights cut short by curtains or blinds, cataloging hideous theme-room decorations, surfing for internet porn. Meditation didn't help; drink only worked if he got thoroughly shitfaced. Masturbation barely took the edge off. Now he'd even begun to envy Sam's broken hand – a couple Vicodin would have knocked him right out.

The girl from the bar certainly didn't suffer from a similar affliction; she was sprawled out on her stomach, snoring softly, disheveled red curls spread over the pillow. Hell, poor thing should be tired; they'd gotten quite the workout. She was lithe, limber, and strong as hell. She'd scratched and bit, introduced him to some rather unconventional uses for ice cubes. In return, Dean was certain she'd joined the national fan club that quite vocally worshipped his skill with his mouth. He could still taste her on his lips.

It was just what he needed. But it still wasn't enough.

He barked his shin on the bedside table, hopped his way through the dark to the bathroom. A flick of the light switch revealed a horror of pink: everything flowers and frills, right down to the rose-covered Kleenex box. He twisted around in front of the mirror to get a good look at his back. Hard to reconcile the virginal décor with the wildcat whose nails had shredded his skin.

He pissed, then showered, the hot water stinging his back. The soap was vanilla-scented. Considering the bite marks on his chest and thighs, it was a bit disconcerting to think he'd smell like a giant cake or ice-cream cone.

He dressed in the dark, left without her waking.

Sam was still asleep when Dean crept in a little after 5:30. They'd lucked out this time, the motel made up of small free-standing cabins, cheap and clean, though decorated in a rather disappointingly uncreative hunting-lodge theme. The cramped kitchenette and mounted bear head seemed eerily familiar. He couldn't be sure, but he thought they might have stayed here once before, ages ago, with Dad.

He pulled a wobbly wooden chair over to the window and sat, listening to the soft whistling of Sam's breath through his nose, watching the night till the lightening sky revealed the peaks of the San Juans, jagged granite limned in purple.

* * *

Sam kept his head down, eyes fixed on the food-spattered menu, and tried to bite back a grin.

They were seated on the diner's east side, the sun's glare directly on their table. Even with the blinds drawn, bright stripes of light painted the room. Dean, out of deference to civility, had left his sunglasses in the car, and obviously regretted his decision. He shaded his bloodshot eyes with one hand, wincing as he squinted at the menu. When the waitress came by, he muttered something that sounded like, "Pancakes. Coffee. Black."

Sam wanted desperately to crack a few jokes – his brother's hangovers were true comedy gold – but sensed that with the tension of the last few months, any attempt at humor would only fall flat. Pity, too. Judging from those claw marks on his back, Dean must have been screwing a daeva.

Ah, well. Sam filed it away for later, when things weren't quite so raw.

After massive infusions of coffee and a short stack drowned in boysenberry syrup, Dean looked a little less peaked. "So where do you want to start?" he asked.

"I thought maybe we'd split up – I'll take the library for local history and legends. You hit the newspapers and county clerk for any mysterious deaths or disappearances."

Dean shrugged. "Sounds good. You ready?"

They waited at the cash register to pay the bill. Took a while – it seemed most of the staff, as well as many of the customers, were involved in a conversation at the other end of the counter. Sam caught a few snatches of words: "Temperature was near forty degrees last night – " "Little slip of a thing – " "Cougar – " "Search party – "

A harried waitress stepped up to the register. "Sorry 'bout that, boys. Was everything all right this mornin'?"

"Yeah, just fine," Sam said. "What's all the commotion about? Something wrong?"

The woman handed him his change. "Little girl's been reported missing," she said. "The police think she may be lost in the woods, so the fellas are starting up a search party."

Sam shot a glance over at Dean. Looked like their plans for the day might have to change.

He turned back to the waitress. "They looking for volunteers?"

* * *

This wasn't exactly the first look Dean had hoped to get at the woods: an armspan away from other searchers, no weapons save for knives. Sam's beat-up old backpack held only bottles of water (both drinking and holy), some Power Bars, and a small container of salt.

The day was crisp and didn't warm much as the sun rose. Among the pines and aspen, spruce and fir, only dappled sunlight reached the ground. Dozens of volunteers trudged through the trees and brush, scanning the shadows for a bright scrap of clothing, calling the missing girl's name.

Teresa Sandoval was just six years old, a Hispanic girl whose father was a firefighter, her mother a nurse. According to the locals, there was no way the parents had done anything shady. The fact that a girl had gone missing after four boys seemed to discount a human predator – those freaks usually had a type. The case for an animal attack seemed strong – the fact that there were no tracks and the child had disappeared from her bed made the supernatural likelier still.

They'd tromped the woods for nearly three hours, and, in Dean's opinion, had gotten nowhere. The area near the girl's home was well-covered. If some creature had taken her, the search party would never find her, and now, any trace evidence would be obliterated by hundreds of well-meaning boots.

Dean was irritable, starving, and somehow sunburnt. His head still throbbed. Every now and then, through the pine-scented breeze, he caught a whiff of alcohol sweat or the stubborn vanilla soap still clinging to his skin. He paused at the base of a tall aspen, squatted as if to study the ground. Closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose.

Sam stopped next to him, took a long swig of water, then stowed his bottle and handed another to Dean. "You should drink some more," Sam said. "Probably dehydrated."

Before Dean could tell his brother where to stick his sanctimony, Sam took a step and promptly pitched forward, sprawling in a gangly-limbed heap onto the ground. "Motherfuck," Sam said in a matter-of-fact tone, a sure indication he was in a pretty foul mood, too.

Dean reached out to help him up. Stopped. Sam must have stepped wrong, catching the edge of an indentation. Dean frowned, grabbed his brother's good hand. "Hey, Sam, take a look at this."

With Sam upright, they stood back, peered down. The depression in the forest floor could have been a gopher hole. Some kind of burrow or wallow. A geologic formation.

But it seemed a rather unlikely coincidence that a natural hole would have taken the shape of a large footprint.


	2. Chapter 2

"What the hell, Dean?" Sam clicked between photos of the print. "Bigfoot? Jolly Green Giant? I've never seen anything like this."

Back at their cozy little cabin, both Dean and the stuffed bear head peered over Sam's shoulder at the laptop screen. They'd downloaded their camera phone photographs to the hard drive; the images displayed their mystery print with digital precision.

Dean shook his head. "I dunno, man, it's a new one on me."

Sam selected a corner of a photo and zoomed in. "Maybe it's like that _X-Files_ with the lake monster – you know, some guy makes fake monster boots and goes traipsing around the woods."

"No, whatever made those tracks had some weight behind it." Dean leaned a little closer, pointed at the clearest part of the print. "Look at how deep they are."

"Great," Sam said. "So it really is the Jolly Green Giant."

"That, or one of those six-hundred-pound dudes you see on the _Springer_ show."

Sam closed out the pictures and opened up one of his favorite databases. "Think maybe it could be another wendigo? We're only a few hours south of Blackwater Ridge."

Dean took the seat across from Sam, shuffled through the stack of papers on the table till he came to the detailed map of the area they'd bought when they hit town. "That thing only left tracks when it wanted to. Besides, it was nowhere near as big as the Johnny Jumbo that owns this foot." His fingers traced lines on the map, highways and rivers, county lines. "Check out Indian myths."

"Native American, Dean."

"Yeah, well, we've got two Ute reservations close to here, not to mention Navajo and Jicarilla Apache just over the state line." Dean bit back any number of responses, most of which contained variations on _college boy_ and _go fuck yourself_. All the Indians he knew referred to themselves as Indians – and in this business, buying herbal remedies and researching fucked-up creatures, he'd gotten to know quite a few.

He realized he was grinding his teeth. He focused on his breathing, forced himself to relax.

With Sam busy clicking away, there wasn't much to do. Dean leafed through a couple of their standard texts on demons and monsters, but didn't see anything that caught his eye. He briefly considered checking Dad's journal, but the thought still left him cold. He practically had the damn thing memorized, anyway.

Outside the cabin's small window, a lurid sunset painted the mountains red. Dean watched the sky darken and headlights cut through the dusk. Picked at a worn spot on his jeans that would soon become a hole. He stood and stretched, the movement pulling at the scratches on his back. Maybe he should be taking antibiotics. Human bites were full of nasty things.

He sat, running his fingers over the map again, as if he could feel the ridges of mountains, like on those old-school globes. To the north and west of Durango, he found Disappointment Creek. Hell. Felt like he'd lived there all his life.

Without warning, Sam threw down the pencil he'd had clenched in his teeth. "Would you quit fidgeting for five seconds, Dean? Some of us actually have something useful to do."

Fine. Wallet. Keys. Phone. Dean opened the door.

"Where are you going?"

Maybe I'll find some Injuns and ask them to do a rain dance. "Out," he said. "Don't wait up."

* * *

In the dark and smoke, the soft neon glow, Dean found the magic hour: that golden sliver of time when he'd had a few beers but wasn't quite drunk, buzzed just enough to leave him feeling lazy and loose-limbed, to liberate a lithe grace, to slide a sloppy smile across his face. He hefted his cue, tested its balance, its weight.

Nothing finer than the crack of the cue ball hitting its mark. He watched balls scatter and sink, close now to reeling in tonight's chump, some frat-boy looking kid, blond and strapping Hitler Youth type from Fort Lewis College. Kept calling Dean "pretty boy." Dean had already forgotten the kid's name, but started thinking of him as "Hans."

The jukebox started in on Molly Hatchet, "Flirting With Disaster." Dean had to laugh. He purposely missed his next couple of shots, playing at being a little more drunk than he really was. Let the kid and his friends talk him into a Jack and Coke. Then another.

Hustle the poor drunk, some drifter past his prime. Dean almost laughed out loud. He could damn near play with his eyes closed. Once, while Sam was at school, he ran the table even with a cast on his left hand and one eye swollen nearly shut.

Little bit tipsy? Piece of cake.

Time for the kill. He circled the table, gauging his shots, enjoying the simple geometry, the bright colors against green felt: wildflowers dotting a smooth prairie. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a girl watching, whispering to her friend. Glossy black hair falling in waves to her waist, perfect porcelain skin, with a wry enough grin to tell him she was no china doll.

He aimed a grin back at her, the toothy, almost-real one. Lined up and sank his last shot. Pocketed the easy four hundred dollars he'd just made. He put up his cue, headed over to say hello to that girl.

Hans intercepted him, all puffed up with righteous indignation. "You fuckin' hustled me," Hans said.

A brilliant conversationalist as well as a master of billiards. Dean figured he should stick to single syllables. "No," he told Hans. "You just suck."

Of course things went south after that. Hans threw a punch that Dean easily ducked, and then the two of them were on the floor, rolling through gritty peanut shells and sticky puddles of spilled beer. Even drunk, Dean had the advantage, hammering the little shit with hard lefts so he wouldn't hurt his trigger finger. Damn, felt good. Then the rest of the Hitler Youth joined in, one of Hans' pals catching Dean with a clumsy but heavy shot to his temple.

Things went black for a few seconds. Dean felt himself hauled off of Hans. Those meaty fists started pounding his body, his face. A shot to the gut; the night's whiskey and beer came up in a rush. He took a couple of boots to the kidneys, the ribs, before some beefy bouncer broke things up.

The next few minutes weren't entirely clear. He pushed himself up to all fours, peanut shells and broken glass grinding into his hands and knees. The girl had turned away, stricken face partly hidden by the fall of her hair.

Two thoughts occurred to Dean simultaneously. One, that he must not look quite so pretty now. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor. And two – he'd held on to that fucking cash.

* * *

Sam feigned sleep when he heard the key turn in the lock. A little after 2:30 the last time he'd looked at the bedside clock. The cabin was silent but for the occasional car passing on the state route and, now, Dean's drunken fumbling: a too-loud click as the door fell shut, a shuffling step. A thump as he tripped over something – "Fuck!" – probably the chair Sam had purposely left out of place.

Dean made it to the bathroom without further incident. The light didn't come on; the door didn't close. Instead, Sam heard more shuffling, a sucked-in breath, then silence.

Sam flicked on the lamp between the beds. "Dean?" No answer. He got up.

He was expecting a shitfaced Dean, possibly with hurling involved. He did not expect a beat-to-hell Dean, sitting hunched in on himself, scooted back into a corner like a wounded animal trying to hide. Dean blinked at the sudden light. " 'M fine, Sammy," he slurred. "Just need to rest a minute."

Though Sam was no doctor, he was reasonably sure no medical professional would describe Dean's condition as "fine." Blood caked around his mouth and nose, covered his hands. One eye was swollen to a slit. From the way he held himself, Sam guessed that either his arm or his ribs had taken some punishment.

"Jesus, Dean," Sam said. "What the hell did you get into?"

Dean fished around in a pocket, came up with a fat wad of cash. "Just bringin' home the bacon," he said. "Y'know, bein' useful and all." He passed the roll over to Sam. He smiled, showing blood in the cracks between his teeth.

Sam took the money, stared at it for a bewildered moment. "Jesus, Dean." He set the cash aside on the bathroom counter, wrestled Dean upright and led him over to sit on the closed toilet seat.

Dean reeked of beer, smoke, and sweat, with an underlying bouquet of vomit and coppery blood. As Sam wiped his brother's face clean, he found a split lip, a fist-sized field of blossoming bruises, a cut along the left cheekbone. Dean's hands were in worse shape. Sam spent a good half-hour picking out slivers of amber glass. Looked like Dean must have crawled through the debris of a broken beer bottle, which meant – Sam looked down, and, yeah, though his jeans had protected him from the worst of it, there were spots of blood on Dean's knees.

Through it all, Dean was silent, watching sleepily, sometimes dozing off. He didn't make a sound till Sam had peeled his henley and T-shirt off, pressed against his ribs to check for damage. "Christ, Sam!" His bellow echoed through the tiled room. "Ow. Fuck!"

"Broken?" Sam asked.

Dean shook his head. "Just bruised, I think." Still, he wrapped an arm around his ribs, took slow, measured breaths. His face had gone pasty, showed a fine sheen of sweat.

Once all the wounds had been cleaned and dressed, Sam half-dragged Dean to bed. They were out of those fancy chemical cold-packs, so he made a quick trip to the ice machine next to the motel office, fashioned a makeshift ice pack from an empty plastic grocery bag. It would work for the moment. He shook Dean awake, handed him the ice, then brought him a glass of water and a Vicodin out of Sam's own prescription for his hand. He was a little surprised when Dean took it willingly, almost gratefully.

With Dean settled down, Sam hit the lights, got back in bed. A few minutes passed with no more sound than the rustling of sheets, the soggy crinkling of Dean's Wal-Mart ice pack. A thin bar of light from the parking lot fell across the beds. Sam resisted the OCD urge to pull the curtains closed.

"Hey, Sam?" Dean's voice was low, rough.

"Yeah?"

Another beat of silence. Then: "I fuckin' hate it when it's kids."

* * *

Dean woke to that fucking bear head staring down at him, a big ol' toothy grin. Not exactly the most desirable image coming out of a hung-over Vicodin haze.

He shifted a bit. The clacking of the laptop keys ceased. "Hey, man." Sam kept his voice low. "You awake?"

Dean grunted, let his head loll to the side. Sam sat against the headboard of the second bed surrounded by computer, books, and legal pad. A row of perfectly sharpened pencils lay within arm's reach on the bedside table.

Dean licked his lips, made a face. He had a wicked case of cottonmouth, compounded by the stale tastes of vomit, alcohol, and blood. Lovely. He pushed himself up to sit. When he tried to speak, it came out as a croak. He cleared his throat, tried again. "Water?"

Sam set the computer aside, fetched a bottle from the mini-fridge. Dean nodded thanks, started with a few careful sips.

Sam must have let him sleep in; the clock read 9:38. He took quick stock of his injuries. His ribs and the small of his back still hurt like hell, seemed to be the worst of it. Nothing for it, really, other than to get moving and stay that way to keep from getting stiff. The cuts on his hands stung, but he could flex his fingers without much pain. The swelling around his left eye had gone down quite a bit. He found the Wal-Mart bag in a leaky pool on the floor; he must have dropped it sometime during the night.

Worth four hundred dollars? Maybe. Maybe not. But it was damn sure worth the feeling of smashing his fist in to that dude's face.

He looked down at his bruised and scraped knuckles, felt a twinge of a smile. Turned to face Sam. "Find anything?"

Sam nodded, leafed through the pages on his legal pad. "Think so. Siants."

Dean frowned. "What now?"

"In Ute legends, Siants were a race of 'monstrous cannibal humanoids.' All but one version of the story describe Siants as female, sometimes looking like 'a wrinkled old witch.' They seem to prefer children, but some versions have them going after grown men. One source described them as having breasts full of poisonous milk. Any child who suckled from them would die and then be eaten."

"Ew." Dean swallowed hard, hoping the water would stay down. "That sounds appetizing."

Sam winced. "Sorry." He hooked a foot around the trash can between the beds, shoved it closer to Dean's. "Apparently they're fond of snatching naughty children who wander too close to the woods."

"Classic nursery bogie."

"You got it."

Dean took another sip of water. "So how do we kill it?"

"They are impervious to all human weapons, _except_ – " Sam turned a yellow page. " – an obsidian arrow."

Dean mulled it over. Nodded. "I think we can swing that."

He felt better already.

* * *

The arrowheads proved surprisingly easy to find. A little gift shop in town sold all sorts of fossils and rocks – souvenirs of the Rockies – as well as "authentic" Native American crafts. Dean picked out a handful of arrowheads appropriate for "big game," and threw in a couple of obsidian blades for good measure. Sam found a few gemstones they could use in rituals for protection and grounding: amethyst, hematite, bloodstone.

Dean sat cross-legged on the cabin's hardwood floor, assembling arrows, cutting several down a few inches to fit their crossbow. The bow he would be using was made from osage orange, the arrow shafts from ash, fletched with the feathers of a red-tailed hawk. Both were left over from a hunt some years back. Sam watched the process from his seat at the room's small table. "So what the hell did you and Dad need homemade arrows for?"

For a moment, Sam was sure he'd crossed some invisible line. Dean kept his eyes on his work, lashing an arrowhead to a shaft with strips of rawhide. Hell, if they'd had more time, Dean probably could have flaked the damn things himself. He'd always been good at this hands-on kind of stuff.

Finally, Dean said, "It was some friggin' possessed wolf tearing people up in Minnesota. I never did find out the whole story. Need-to-know basis, you know." He looked up at Sam, then back down at his work. "Anyway, I guess this thing was a stickler for tradition. Dad knew some guy who tried modern crossbow arrows, nearly got castrated for his trouble. So Pastor Jim hooked us up with this Ojibwe medicine man who told us to go with the old school. We ended up playing ice fishermen. Minnesota in the middle of January. Damn near froze my balls off. But," he shrugged, "we waxed the thing. Caught some muskie in the process that tasted pretty damn good the next day. And we had some arrows left over. So, all in all, not a bad hunt."

Sam had to grin at the image of Dad and Dean as hardcore anglers, bundled in arctic parkas. He was willing to bet Dean had been at his comedic worst, cracking bad puns and outlandish metaphors starting with, _It's so cold that_ . . . He felt a twinge of regret for all the good times he'd left behind along with the bad, all the stories he might never get to hear.

He'd let the silence drag on too long. Dean cleared his throat, moved on to the next arrow. "So, any bright ideas on how to find this thing?"

Sam shuffled through their research for the map. "That's gonna be the fun part," he said. "I can't find any source that specifies the Siants' preferred lair. There's a lot of forest out there, and a lot of caves and mines. My gut says we should start in the area where we found the footprint, but the search party hasn't been called off yet."

Dean looked up from his work. "Maybe we just split the difference. Start someplace central to all the disappearances." He finished the last arrow, stood to look over Sam's shoulder at the map.

They'd marked the locations of the children's homes. While it didn't form anything as neat as a circle, the sites did point in a general direction to a section of forest. Unfortunately, considering this thing's massive stride, they could be looking at a territory of hundreds of miles.

Dean sat, poked at the cut under his eye. "Christ, what a nightmare."

"Yeah, this is gonna suck pretty hard." Sam stood and stretched. "Why don't we go grab some grub. Make sure we've got our supplies together. And then in the morning we can start hiking."

"Just so long as there's no camping."

While Dean hit the head before they left, Sam picked up one of the finished arrows. He ran his fingers over the smooth black stone, the solid leather lashing. Hell. Politically incorrect Dean probably knew more about native ways than any Stanford professor.

* * *

If anyone asked, they were out for a backcountry hike, just enjoying nature's gift of a beautiful autumn day.

Not that they expected to run into anyone.

Dean parked the Impala at one of a line of tourist cabins, in heavy use during the summer months, nearly abandoned now. Their starting point was close enough to wilderness, far enough from prying eyes, but hopefully easy to get back to.

They headed out at first light, dressed in layers for warmth, packing water, sandwiches, jerky, and trail mix. Sam, at a disadvantage because of his cast, had the crossbow. Dean had the old-school bow, just in case this thing was one of those sticklers for tradition. They each carried an obsidian blade, as well as an assortment of other knives, Dean's favorite shotgun, and Sam's preferred Taurus, loaded with silver rounds. A little of everything, in other words, just in case.

Dean took point out of habit. Sam didn't mind so much; it gave him a chance to watch Dean, make sure he wasn't pushing himself. Whether his ribs were cracked or just bruised, they still had to hurt like hell. And Dean had just been _off_ lately. Maybe it was Dad's death, maybe the aftermath of Dean's roadside confession, or maybe it was just this case. All Sam knew was that Dean was on edge, and that could be a scary thing.

The sun streamed down in shafts through the canopy of trees, barely reaching the forest floor. The brothers seldom spoke, relying mainly on hand signals. They moved at a moderate pace, fast enough to cover some ground, slow enough that they'd catch any tracks or sign.

Around noon, they stopped for lunch next to a shallow, trickling stream, sat back to back on a broad, flat outcropping of rock. Before starting out again, they checked both GPS and map. The last thing they needed was to get lost, or stray too far from the car. Dislike of camping aside, spending the night in the wilderness with the thing they were hunting could very well be suicidal.

Dean picked up a trail mid-afternoon, spotty partial footprints and the occasional bit of broken brush. Of course, with their luck, it led deeper into the woods. The trees closed in around them; the sun disappeared. Dean's posture tensed, bow and arrow held at the ready. His face went blank, a stoic slate of concentration.

Sam took his cues from his brother, his senses on full alert. He tried to keep one eye on the dark forest, one eye on Dean. If they got separated, things could go south real fast.

Deeper into the sunless forest, all sound ceased. No birds or insects made a sound, no creatures rustled the brush. Dean's nostrils flared. A second later, the smell hit Sam, too: death.

Dean shot a look back at Sam, a quick flick of the eyes that said, _I don't like this_. That said, _watch your ass_. He pushed aside boughs of pine, crept forward. Ducked his head against the smell. The sight.

In a small clearing where the sun didn't reach, a body hung upside down from a tree, gutted, bled dry. Field-dressed like a deer. Long, dark hair fell around the child's face. Pudgy little hands dangled below her head. Teresa Sandoval, or what was left of her.

Sam's brain gave him a few seconds to take this all in. Next thing he knew, he was bent over losing his lunch, leaning heavily against a tree. Christ. He gasped for breath, wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve, the crossbow still dangling awkwardly from his casted hand.

When he turned back, Dean hadn't looked away from the scene, eyes a dark and sober green, staring grimly at the girl's body.

Cannibal monster or no, what the hell could do such a thing – treat a child as a side of beef? Sam stepped closer to Dean, taking in the clenched jaw, the dark fury written in the shadows of his face. No sound in the clearing, not even the low buzz of flies. Sam felt a prickling at the back of his neck. "Dean – " he breathed.

A shadow dropped out of the trees, a massive slab of gray-brown flesh that reeked of blood and stale breath. It landed on Dean, taking him down with a thud, then backhanded Sam. The force of the blow sent him flying. He slammed into a tree, slumped breathless.

Before either of them could react, the thing was gone, bounding from the clearing in a crash of brush. "Fuck!" The shout came from Sam's left. At least it sounded like Dean was okay. Sam caught his breath, pushed himself up to his elbows. Dean was on his feet looking no worse for the wear. "You all right, Sam?"

Sam nodded. "I'm good."

Dean watched him for a second, looking for a lie. He nodded once, grabbed the arrow he'd dropped, and took off after the thing at a full run.

Shit. Sam scrambled to his feet, found his crossbow, headed after Dean. He couldn't hear Dean's pursuit for his own crashing, but it wasn't exactly a careful chase: bent brush and broken branches showed the way. He heard another shout of "Fuck!" Poured on the speed. He hit another clearing, skidded to a stop before a ravine leading down to a creek.

In the creek bed stood a soaking wet Dean, wringing water from his clothes. He looked up at Sam. "Fucking thing's just too quick. Lost it after about ten yards."

"Shit." Sam gave Dean his good hand, helped him up the slope. They made their way back to the clearing in silence. Teresa Sandoval's body swayed in the wind.

* * *

Hot water beat down on Dean's neck, his bowed head, sluicing off the points of his nose, his chin.

He sat in the bathtub with his knees pulled up to his chest, the emotions of the day spilling out in the shakes. All those years on the road with his dad and brother, the shower was the only privacy he ever got. It was where he jerked off, or cried, where he let himself fall apart, where he got his shit together. Where he could wonder what kind of a person didn't lose his shit when faced with the gutted body of a six-year-old girl. Sam still had the humanity to heave his guts up at such a sight. When had that been burned out of Dean?

The anger, guilt, and fear shook their way out of his body, a feeling like sparks dripping down from his fingertips. He sat that way till the water ran cold.

He didn't go out that night.


	3. Chapter 3

Even the plump waitress – Dotty, according to her nametag – was getting worried about Dean's appetite. "You sure I can't get you anything else, hon?" she asked. "Maybe some more bacon? We got fresh biscuits."

Dean managed a ghost of a smile but just shook his head. "No thanks."

They were up before dawn again, dining with construction and factory workers, nurses, people coming off of third shift or heading to first. They planned another day of hiking, now that Dean's boots had dried out next to the cabin's heater. They would start near the clearing where they'd found the body, search spiraling out from the site. This time, they'd take more camping gear; if their search took them deeper into the forest, they might have no choice but to stay the night. They had to finish this, sooner rather than later.

Sam finished off his bacon and eggs, drained his glass of orange juice, surreptitiously studying Dean as he paged through a discarded newspaper. The bruises from his fight had faded a bit, but he'd busted up his chin, scraped his hands when he took that header into the creek bed the day before. Some sensible part of Sam's brain wanted to complain: typical Dean, always chasing after the monster, running full-tilt without ever looking ahead. And it was all true – but then, Sam had been too busy puking up his guts to even think about giving chase.

Yeah. Way to play the big, bad hunter.

Something in the paper must have caught Dean's eye. He shoved away his half-finished meal, pulled the page closer. "Shit," he muttered, forehead creased in a frown. "Sam. I think we got another one."

"What?" Dean slid the paper across to Sam. The article he pointed out was buried two or three pages deep in the local section. _Foster parents charged,_ read the headline. The tag underneath said, _Boy's remains yet to be found_.

Sam skimmed the story. Eleven-year-old Matthew Jessup had been reported missing from his foster home when the social worker assigned to his case had arrived for a routine visit. The parents kept changing their story. First, they said the boy had gone to play at a friend's house. Then they said he'd gotten angry when they took away his video games for a punishment; he must have run away. Finally, they told the authorities they had no idea where he was – whatever had snatched the little Sandoval girl must have gotten Matthew, too.

The police got suspicious when too many things didn't add up. A closer look revealed signs that the couple had abused their other children – their own daughter and another foster son. The basement family room turned up spots of blood that a hasty clean-up job had failed to remove. After intensive questioning, the parents admitted to abusing Matthew, but insisted they'd had nothing to do with his disappearance. The cops and the district attorney didn't buy it, charged the couple with murder even without a body.

"I don't know, Dean. You really think this has to do with the Siants? Sounds like it could have gone down exactly the way the cops say it did."

When he looked up, Dean had his head in both hands, rubbing at his temples. "It fits."

"Do you think we should check it out, or just head back to the woods like we planned?"

"Fuck, I don't know." Dean looked up, something dark and bleak in his eyes. "We gotta get this thing. But it could be friggin' anywhere. If we could just figure out how it's choosing these kids – "

"Then maybe we could narrow down where to find it." Sam nodded. "All right. Let's see what we can dig up."

* * *

For the second time in less than a week, Dean found himself picking the lock of a recently vacated home. This one was a 1970s style split-level, all sharp angles, faux stone, and exposed beams. It had probably seemed quite modern when _The Brady Bunch_ was in its first run. The only thing missing was the shag carpet.

This place was as stark as the Heffrons' Cape Cod had been chaotic. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Gaps where things had been removed – DVDs missing from the entertainment center shelves, the CPU gone from the computer area, but the peripherals left behind – told the story of what the cops had found important during their search. Dean wondered what they'd found. Kiddie porn, probably. The newspapers were just too polite to say it.

Sam took the downstairs while Dean went up. It was the same story in the family's bedrooms: everything impersonal, no pictures or posters, no toys left out, no pile of dirty laundry, no cosmetic bottles cluttering the bathroom counter. Dean went through the closets and drawers, finding the same holes for missing items – probably sex toys and lube, hidden DVDs or Polaroids, maybe a small stash of a drug of choice. All the rooms smelled of baby powder; the scent inexplicably raised the hair on Dean's neck. He went back downstairs.

He could hear Sam still rattling around in the foster father's home office. Went to check the hall closets. One held the standard hats and coats, vacuum cleaner, flashlights and emergency candles. Dean checked the coat pockets, didn't find anything but spare change.

The second closet at the end of the hall was empty, just a few wire hangers left on the rod, and reeked of urine. Dean tugged the pull cord hanging from the bare light bulb. Spotted scuff marks on the walls. He squatted for a closer look. Sneaker prints lined the inside of the closet, the white-painted door.

Child-sized sneaker prints.

A couple smears of blood.

When Sam finished in the office, he found Dean at the end of the hallway, crouched in front of the closet and staring inside. "Dean? What is it?"

Dean came to his feet but didn't turn. "Those motherfuckers." His jaw was clenched tight. His voice shook, low and raw.

"What?" Sam edged in front of Dean to get a closer look.

"They fucking – " Dean sucked in a breath through his nose. "Goddamn it – "

Sam knelt, reached out one hand, not quite touching the footprints. It took him a second to process, but then, the smell, the blood, the fine cracks in the door radiating from desperate blows – yeah. He got the picture. "Son of a bitch," he breathed. He stood, looked to Dean.

Dean was half-turned, facing the wall instead of Sam and the closet, his stare fixed on the blank white, his anger electric, a charged crackle in the air. Sam stepped back. "Hey, man," he started, no idea what he was really going to say – some half-assed _Cool down_, or, _I know this case is getting to you, but_ . . .

Then Dean growled, reared back, put his fist right through the wall.

Holy shit. "Whoa, hey, man, come on." Sam got his hands on Dean's shoulders, shoved him back against the opposite wall. A cloud of white powder – pulverized drywall – followed Dean's fist. Dean's nostrils flared with uneven breaths. "Come on, man," Sam said, "I know you're jealous and all, but we really don't need matching casts, right?"

The fury in Dean's eyes dimmed, but his breathing was still erratic. "Hey. Dean. You gotta breathe, okay?"

Dean nodded, squeezed his eyes shut. Breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth. The only other time Sam had seen his brother this close to hyperventilating had been their lone foray into air travel. It sparked a jolt of fear at the base of Sam's spine: that Dean seemed to know what to do, how to handle this. How many times had he been this freaked out without Sam ever knowing?

After a minute of controlled breathing, Dean sagged against Sam's hands, still snagged in his shirt. He muttered, "Sorry, Sammy," and pulled away, heading for the door.

* * *

A neon Budweiser sign splashed bloody shadows across the booth, their scattered papers, the right half of Dean's face. Same sports bar as their first night here, chiefly because Dean hadn't started any fights here. Yet.

Sam paged through the police report on Matthew Jessup, his dinner half-finished, forgotten. Jesus, the shit this kid went through. He'd been taken from his biological parents because of abuse and neglect. Hadn't come to the attention of police until he'd been picked up for prostitution. The father was in jail for a DUI. The mother just took off. Matthew had run out of money, needed to keep himself and his two sisters fed.

Eleven years old.

And when the authorities finally tipped to it, they split the kids up, stuck Matthew in a home that was just as bad, if not worse.

Sam pushed the file aside. Couldn't think about it anymore.

Dean was reviewing the other kids' cases, still looking for their connection. Again, he'd barely eaten, was working on draining a second beer. His right hand looked a little swollen, the knuckles now scraped up to match the left, but he swore nothing was broken. Sam had no choice but to believe him.

The Steve Miller Band played on the jukebox, "The Joker." Dean's fingers drummed along on the tabletop. He took a pull from his beer, still reading. "Hey, Sam, I think we got something."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Didn't Mrs. Sands mention something about Jake going on a nature hike?" Dean shuffled through a few pages, handed them over to Sam. "Looks like the other kids did, too."

Sam glanced at the sections Dean had marked, then flipped through the papers he'd lifted from Matthew Jessup's foster home. "Shit, Dean, I think you're right. Found this posted up on the fridge at the house today." He showed Dean a computer-printed tri-fold brochure.

The flier advertised an educational nature hike sponsored by the local YMCA for children ages six through thirteen. Attendees would learn about local flora and fauna, as well as tips for hiking and wilderness safety, probably something along the lines of, _stay on the marked trail_. Several dates were listed to choose from, April through October. A permission slip along the bottom of the back page had been cut off.

"Shit," Dean said, "This has gotta be it." He shook his head, still reading the details. "Must be like a friggin' buffet table for this thing."

It took only a cajoling phone call to the Y to find out what trail the hikes had used. The path didn't stray too far into the woods, but would have been perfect for a forest-dwelling creature to hang back and pick out a victim. Dean plotted the winding trail on their well-used map. Their gear was already waiting to go, still packed from the morning's aborted trip. At first light, they'd head out again.

Finally, felt like they were getting somewhere. A glimmer of relief showed in Dean's eyes. Sam felt it, too, started to think that maybe they'd get this thing after all. Maybe they could stop any more kids from getting hurt.

He started gathering their research, the police reports and newspaper articles, maps, notes. Tucked them all away in his laptop bag. The waitress came around to clear their plates and bring more beer. Dean pasted on a smile for her – not quite his usual wattage, but it was a start.

Sam's thoughts drifted back to Matthew Jessup's short and unhappy life. Abuse against children was the one thing he could never understand; the concept was just as foreign to him today as it had been when they'd heard Max Miller's sad story, as it had been when Sam had first understood just what it was the grim specter of Children's Services might investigate his own family for if he and Dean weren't careful to avoid injuries on hunts, or careful with their excuses after the fact.

He felt a grudging rush of gratitude toward his father. As he'd told Dean months ago, a little more tequila, a little less demon hunting . . . Compared to a lot of kids, they'd had it lucky. Dad had been Marine-strict, and at times a pure, grade-A asshole, but he'd never abused them, and he'd always come back, even if it was a few days late sometimes. They'd never had to resort to the same things Matthew Jessup had.

Except –

How would Sam even know? Just because Dean had never mentioned running out of food or money didn't mean they never had.

Dean had always sheltered him from spirits and monsters and bullies, from mean-spirited teachers and crochety neighbors, from Dad's occasional wrath – from reality itself. All those times when Dad was late, Dean had been the one responsible for keeping them both fed and clothed and out of trouble. Now that he thought about it, he remembered times when they'd lived off of peanut butter sandwiches, less and less peanut butter making it to the bread each day. Times when they'd "camped" indoors, wrapped up in sleeping bags when the heat didn't work. Back then, food just appeared and Sam never thought twice about it. He remembered Dean's comment that these missing kids didn't know what it took to live on the streets. Did Dean?

Sam finished the rest of his beer in one long swallow. His eyes drifted down to Dean's swollen hand. "Think I'm gonna head back," he said. "Make sure all our gear is together."

Dean nodded absently. His mind was already across the bar, with someone else. The reply seemed automatic: "Don't wait up."

* * *

From his seat at the end of the bar, perched in a deceptively lazy slouch, Dean had a good view of the whole place.

To his right was the scarred mahogany bar, covered with empty glasses and wilted napkins, limp dollar bills and sticky rings of liquid. The bartender, a college-age girl just this side of plump, hustled from one end of the stick to the other, earning her keep. Behind her, backlit rows of bottles glowed like a stained glass window, an alcoholic's representation of God: deep green and cobalt blue, golden and amber and clear.

To his left and dead ahead, he watched the night's petty dramas unfold. Flirting and eye-fucking, attempted pickups. Accepted pickups. A fight between a heavyset blond and her too-skinny boyfriend. Whispers and giggles between female friends. Shit-talking at the pool tables.

Dean wouldn't get too drunk tonight. Couldn't afford to. This Siants had already taken too many kids. He wouldn't let it take one more. Tomorrow they'd find this thing and waste it. He would not consider any other option.

But tonight he needed something, his nerves too raw to let him sleep.

There was a pool table open at the back. He got a fresh beer and made his way over, racked 'em up. He didn't want to hustle tonight, didn't want to risk another fight – and the way he was feeling, he knew he would find one. So he just fucked around, lazily knocking shots in, one eye on the table, the other on his prospects.

Dark-haired, olive-skinned girl at the bar. She faced the room, her back to the stick, leaning over every now and then to chat with her friend.

Perky little outdoorsy type, hair the color of straw, sunburnt ski-jump nose. Tight, well-worn jeans and battered hiking boots. Dean always had enjoyed athletic women.

Smokin' hot brunette with milk-pale skin and a wicked sharp smile. Made Dean think of a sexy librarian, escaped from the dusty stacks to let her hair down for the night.

All of them watched Dean's movements with appreciation. Hell, from the eyes he felt on him right now, even a couple guys were looking tonight.

He wasn't sure whose idea it was, the girl's or her boyfriend's, but before midnight he was listing between them at the bar, dirty suggestions of rope and toys whispering in both ears, hot tongue on his neck, too many hands, and he didn't care – just _wanted_.

He wished he could blame it on drink, but sometimes it felt good, felt right, to give up control to someone else, to let pain burn everything else out of his mind. They always _knew_, too, that it was what he needed – like it was written in his face or his eyes, the way he carried himself, there for anyone who wanted to see.

Despite his best intentions, he only remembered the night in flashes: the girl going down on him while the guy drove, a tangle of limbs against cool cotton sheets, the first jolt of panic when he fought but couldn't free his wrists.

He vaguely remembered going again in the shower, hands and mouths and cucumber-scented soap. Lurching back to the motel through cold rain, he could still smell it on his skin. He stopped to get sick. Sat on the curb for a few minutes, staring down at his hands. What the hell was he thinking, doing this stupid shit in the middle of a hunt? What was it Sam had said? That he was on edge? Tailspinning?

Well, hell. With what Dad had laid on him, was it any wonder?

He had to get his shit together – didn't need to give Sam any more excuses to doubt him. He took a few deep breaths of cold air, swiped the rainwater from his face. Struggled back to his feet with the aid of a telephone pole. He saw remnants of fliers stapled and nailed and duct-taped to the wood, faded by sun and rain. The topmost layer was just a few days old, bright neon yellow encased by a plastic sheet protector: MISSING. ETHAN CRAWFORD, AGE 8.

Feeling decidedly more sober, Dean moved off into the night, ducked his head against the driving rain.

* * *

Soft rain pattered down on the carpet of dead aspen leaves; a cold wind whipped through the branches. Sam squinted up at the gray sky. He got the feeling they were in for a rather unpleasant hike.

He followed Dean along the wooded trail, on high alert for anything out of place. They were both soaked through, but they couldn't let this go another day.

Dean held up a hand; they both stopped. "Check it out," Dean breathed. He nodded toward a slight break in the trees.

"Maybe a deer trail?"

"Maybe. But – " Dean stepped closer to the edge of the path. Pointed out a depression on the ground.

"Huh. Looks familiar," Sam said. A partial big-ass footprint. They were on the right track.

Dean led the way down the trail, a military tension in his shoulders, his hair plastered to his head. Dumbass was going to catch pneumonia – this was the second time he'd been out in the rain in less than twelve hours. But Sam wasn't going to say a word about it, or about the bruises on Dean's wrists that looked like he'd been tied up or held down, or about the hand-shaped bruises on his throat. A string of one-night stands, Sam expected. A wild chick with sharp fingernails, he could handle. But whatever this was? Sam didn't want to know.

Their search dragged on through the morning, though they could only figure time by their watches and hunger. At noontime, they broke for lunch, huddled under a slim ledge, eating soggy sandwiches.

"You know what, Sam?" Dean asked. His voice was still a little rough from whatever he'd been up to last night.

"What?"

"This sucks a big fat one."

When they set out again, they found themselves following the ledge of granite, heading up, the path getting steeper as they went. Stubborn trees sprouted from the mountain at awkward angles; the carpet underfoot was now more pine and spruce needles than aspen leaves. The rain continued its steady fall, but the air seemed colder. Sam hoped they'd find the Siants before it turned to snow.

They might have missed the lair altogether if Dean hadn't fallen into it. One second he was on point as usual, the next, he'd vanished with a crash of brush and string of curses. Sam stepped cautiously, found the gaping wound in the earth that had moments ago been covered by a clever mat of branches. He found his flashlight stowed in a pocket, shone the beam down into the maw. "Dean?" he called.

The hole wasn't as deep as he'd feared, maybe seven or eight feet. In the beam of light, motes of dust floated and swirled. The dark heap that was Dean stirred.

"You all right?" Sam asked.

Dean squinted up at the light. Raised one sarcastic thumb.

After a quick look around up top, Sam dropped down into the hole. By then, Dean was on his feet, albeit hunched over, protecting his ribs. "Just knocked the wind out of me," he said, wincing. He took a few long, slow breaths, then straightened up, looking around the cave. "Think we're getting close."

Sam pointed the light toward the walls, swung around, taking it all in. Crude petroglyphs covered the walls: concentric circles, stick-figures, buffalo and deer. A dark passageway led deeper into the mountain.

Dean looked up at their entrance, then back to the passage. "Man," he said, "I don't like this at all."

Sam had to agree, but it didn't look like they had much choice. They could get out of this hole easily enough, but would they get a better lead at finding this thing? "You got any M&Ms to leave a trail?" he asked, only half-joking.

"Better," Dean said. He turned Sam around, unzipped and started groping in Sam's backpack. He came up with something that gave a metallic rattle. Handed it to Sam while he got the pack zipped back up. Spray paint. Day-glo orange Krylon.

Sam stared at the can. "How come I get to carry all this shit?"

Dean's smile flashed in the dark. " 'Cause I'm the one with the busted ribs."

"Thought you said they were just bruised," Sam grumbled.

It took them a minute to get a system worked out: Dean up front with his bow and arrow, Sam with flashlight and crossbow, the paint stashed in his jacket pocket for an occasional mark. The going was slow, a strained silence, waiting for any sound that was out of place. Their meager beam of light didn't do much but make the place more spooky. They weren't getting rained on anymore, but it was still cold, probably fifty to fifty-five degrees. Sam tried his hardest not to think of coffee and hot showers.

The passage eventually opened up, split off into two other tunnels. "Door number one," Dean asked, nodding left, "or door number two?"

"Two," Sam said. "And if you even suggest splitting up, I'll knock your ass out right here."

"Jeez. So testy." Dean shook his head and moved off to the right.

Dead end. There were some smaller tunnels leading off from either side, but Dean vetoed that with a look that was slightly green around the gills. Great, Sam thought. Planes, rats. Now claustrophobia? They headed back the way they'd come, started down the left passage.

This one opened into a larger cavern. If they weren't facing mortal danger, Sam would have taken the time to marvel at what he saw: crystalline formations sparkling in his flashlight's beam, more cave paintings, a chamber of worship worthy of a cathedral.

Then his flashlight sparked off of something different: the eerie glow of animal eyes. Before Sam could react, the thing rushed him, sending him and the light off in separate directions. Sam hit the ground hard but managed to hang on to the crossbow.

A sharp twang as Dean loosed an arrow. It grazed the Siants; the thing let out a deafening shriek. Dean tried to scramble away, but the thing was on him in two long strides, claws latching onto his jacket, lifting him for inspection, like a shopper curious about a cut of beef. He felt at his belt for the obsidian blade, found the rope-wrapped hilt. Slashed at the thing's arm. It bellowed, dropped him. He landed hard and wrong on his right knee. Ignored the pain and surged up, aiming his blade for where he hoped he'd find the thing's heart. The blade found its mark. Viscous blood pumped out over Dean's hands, black in the flashlight's beam.

The Siants was hurt, but not down. It lashed out with one huge hand, sending Dean sprawling across the cave floor. Then it was on him again. Its claws raked across his chest, slashed his arm as he tried to block.

Thwack! Black blood splattered Dean's face. He sputtered and struggled, scrambled out from under the thing as it fell dead on the cave floor, Sam's arrow sticking out of its back.

"Jesus!" Dean blinked and spat, wiped his face on his sleeve, mainly succeeding at smearing the thing's blood all around. The room spun for a second, and then Sam was in front of him, still holding the crossbow, his other hand catching in Dean's jacket to keep him on his feet.

"Hey," Sam said. "You all right?"

"Think so." Dean looked down at his chest, pale skin and wet red slashes showing through the ruins of his shirts. "Mostly."

They stood there for a moment to catch their breath, Dean listing in Sam's grip. He leaned forward, rested his forehead on his brother's shoulder. "Thanks, Sammy," he said. Thumped Sam on the chest. "Did good."

He moved to sit against the wall while Sam found the flashlight, salted and burned the corpse. The stench of burning flesh filled the cavern. Dean closed his eyes. As happy as he would be to leave this place behind, he was not looking forward to hiking back in the rain.

* * *

It had never felt so good to skin out of smoky clothes and step into a hot shower.

Shivering cold, bone-tired, battered and bruised, Dean washed away sweat and dirt and blood. Everything ached. The slashes on his chest and arm had turned out to be shallow, not quite bad enough for stitches. His thermal undershirt and long-sleeve T-shirt, however, had likely met their untimely demise. His left hip was one big blotch of black-and-blue from his crash-landing into the Siants' lair, his right knee still tweaked from when the creature had dropped him.

At least that fucking thing was dead, would never hurt another child. He and Sam could rest up for a few days, then maybe head south before winter set in. Find a nice, easy salt-n-burn, maybe in a homey little college town, where the ghosts were old and the girls were hot. Just forget about all this shit: about dead kids and grieving parents. About parents who were nothing more than sperm and egg donors. About sick fucks and the shit they did to little kids.

It took a minute for the pipes to stop shuddering after he shut off the water. Then he could hear Sam farting around in the room, probably alphabetizing the weapons or some shit. Dean wiped the steam from the mirror, the glass cool against his palm.

The face that stared back at him, bruised and scraped, left eye still slightly swollen, was somehow not the face that others saw, the face that had half the bar wanting to fuck him last night, the face that could fool people into believing what a fake badge said, that let people see what they wanted to see, that let him be whatever they wanted him to be.

He wished that just once, he could see that mask for himself.

The mirror fogged over again. He watched himself disappear.

* * *

After liberal application of BenGay patches, Sam felt like tingly, minty shit. Getting knocked around by the Siants had left him stiff and sore, and the constant throbbing ache of his healing hand didn't exactly help matters. His cast was beat to hell, itchy, and a little bit soggy. He hated to think he might need a new one; aside from the pain-in-the-ass factor, they really didn't need to hemorrhage any more money on medical bills.

Lucky thing Dean hadn't been hurt any worse today. Between finding that cave the hard way and nearly serving as the Siants' chew toy, he could have been getting his food through a tube rather than picking listlessly at a carton of Kung Pao chicken.

Sam stretched out on his bed, leaning against the headboard with his own Mongolian beef. Things should be looking up right now. The hunt was finished. They were warm and dry, though rain still drummed on the cabin's roof. Neither of them had been badly injured. They had a bounty of Chinese takeout and cold beer. _The Godfather_ was on TV, one of the few movies he and Dean could agree on.

But Dean still seemed tense, restless, staring ahead as though not really seeing the movie, playing with his food rather than inhaling it the way he should have been.

Maybe it was just the case. It was always rough when they were too late to save anyone . . . when the monster was dead, but grieving families were still missing their loved ones . . . when kids were involved.

Maybe it was everything else.

While Sam watched out of the corner of his eye, Dean rubbed his forehead, put aside his carton of food. Got up to stand at the window, looked out at the rainy night.

"You done with that?" Sam asked, nodding toward the chicken when Dean turned.

Dean shrugged. "Go for it." He sat to pull on his boots, even though they were still wet. Started lacing them up. "Think I'm gonna go out for a bit."

"Lemme guess," Sam said. "Don't wait up."


	4. Chapter 4

Dean slotted a handful of quarters into the jukebox, made his selections, heavy on the Zeppelin, and found a seat at the end of the bar as the opening riff to "Whole Lotta Love" kicked in. Cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air. Underneath that, a riot of smells, including beer, nachos, and some girl's too-strong perfume.

Underneath that, Dean could still smell fire.

Something altogether different from woodsmoke or cigarettes, from the billowing cloud at the grill. It held a hint of lighter fluid, of burning flesh. Usually, it didn't bother him – usually it was a sign of a job well done. Tonight he'd had to get out of the room, away from the dirty laundry crammed into their bags. Maybe it was the way this job had worked out, a day late and a dollar short. Maybe it was just this time of the year.

Felt like he had ashes in his nose, his throat.

He worked methodically toward being completely trashed, from Jack and Coke to just plain Jack. The traffic of the bar flowed around him, laughter and conversations and propositions like a river over stones.

Eventually he wandered over to the pool tables. Got a friendly game going – just for drinks, no money – with some guy about his own age who taught freshman English at Fort Lewis College and turned out to be nearly as obsessive about music as Dean was. He was there with some friends, a guy who spent the whole night texting on his phone and a couple of girls who weren't exactly hard to look at.

The night slid by with a liquid sense of time, slow and lazy, shots lined up with no particular urgency. After a few more drinks, the games were a bit more evenly matched. A discussion of the cultural and literary merits of Poison's "Something to Believe In" signaled the group's descent into inebriation; though Sam may have found it surprising, Dean was not among the song's supporters. He cadged a cigarette from the lit prof – Wes, Dean recalled. Let a different kind of smoke sear his throat.

He spent his time between shots talking music with Wes, zeroing in on the hot Asian art instructor whose name he'd already forgotten. Before long, he realized he was actually flirting with both of them.

The girl kept brushing up against him by "accident," totally buying into the outlandish tales of adventure he'd concocted to explain his injuries. Every time she leaned over to talk to him, he caught a hint of anise and paint thinner.

Wes kept cracking bad puns, made Dean snort beer up his nose. Dean sputtered, wiped his nose on his sleeve, still laughing. Wes grinned, sank his next shot with ease.

On the jukebox, the Yardbirds were doing "Smokestack Lightning." Dean leaned back against the wall, cue held loosely in one hand. Took a drag from his smoke and watched Wes run the table, starting to think that maybe this guy had lost the first few games on purpose.

When it was Dean's turn again, he leaned over the table to line up his break, feeling eyes on him and knowing damn well how he looked, posed over green felt, cigarette dangling from his lips. He could imagine how Sam would react: that patented pissy little bitchface, maybe some comment about Dean's shameless display.

But then, Sam wasn't here right now.

* * *

Rain dumped down from the sky in cold sheets as Dean walked back to the motel, hands jammed deep in his coat pockets, soaked to the bone in less than a block. Tonight he hadn't bothered to stick around for a sex-sated nap or rushed and silent shower, head too full of rough hands and slick skin, of being pressed facedown into sheets that smelled like cedar. Of _what the fuck did you do?_

The lights were out when he got back to the cabin, and he left it that way, skinning out of his clothes in the dark, feeling his way to the bathroom. He let the shower run until the water was as hot as he could stand, stayed under the spray till it began to cool off. In the silence after the pipes quieted down, he held his breath, waited for any noise that said Sam might be awake. Nothing.

He found some sweatpants by feel, burrowed under the covers. He waited for the room to stop spinning, still shivering, listening to the rain hammer down on the roof.

* * *

Sam shoved a coffee across the table to Dean. "Fresh pot down at the gas station," he said. "Drink up while it's still hot."

Dean thanked him with a nod and a grunt, picked at a blueberry muffin, shading his eyes with one hand.

The sun was back out today, though the cold seemed to have settled in for good. Sam had slept till noon and given Dean a couple hours after that, which was how he'd ended up going out for "breakfast" at three o'clock in the afternoon.

Sam downed his own muffin in silence, dedicated to walking on eggshells. Dean looked like hell. His face was pale and puffy, the only color his fading bruises and the shadows underneath his eyes. He probably thought Sam had been asleep when he'd come in late last night, dripping rainwater on the floor and shivering even after he'd hit the shower. Probably thought Sam didn't notice the ginormous hickeys along his collarbone or the bite mark on the back of his neck.

As disconcerting as Dean's brief celibacy had been in the weeks following Dad's death, this parade of drunken hookups and fetishes was far worse.

Part of Sam wanted to say something, try to figure out what was wrong, try to find a way to fix it. Then he'd remember their track record for heart-to-hearts, the cold fear in his own gut at seeing invincible Dean with tears in his eyes, the blank look on Dean's face when he'd shut down at Sam's non-reaction. Maybe they were better off with the strong-and-silent routine.

Maybe he shouldn't ask questions when he wasn't sure he wanted the answers.

Sam unfolded the newspaper, looking for a job, a distraction. When he saw the article, he almost considered not even showing Dean. Leaving the damn paper in the trash and putting as many miles between them and this town as they possibly could.

But in reality, that wasn't even an option.

"Dean." Sam pushed the paper across the table.

The headline read: _Nine year old boy missing from township home_. Noah Richards had last been seen the previous evening, around the time they'd gotten back to the motel.

"Fuck!" Dean shoved his cup away, swiped both hands over his face, through his hair. "What the fuck did we miss?"

Sam shook his head. "I dunno, man. Maybe the thing had a mate?" Or, god forbid, even a pack? "We didn't see any sign of another one, though."

"Goddamn it." Dean held his head in his hands, absently rubbed at that thin scar. "We have to have missed something. There's just too much about this case that doesn't add up."

"Like what?"

"Like how this thing goes unnoticed for probably hundreds of years and then all of a sudden goes on a binge."

"Maybe its territory is being disrupted? You know, like when coyotes or mountain lions hit the suburbs because new construction is squeezing them out?"

"You saw those woods, Sam. That thing has thousands of acres with no people besides some crazy-ass hikers." Dean rubbed a hand across his mouth. "Why now? It's almost like this thing is escalating, like – "

Dean stared into the middle distance, perfectly still.

"Dean? What is it?"

He dug his phone out of his pocket. "Sam, you still got the phone number for the Y?"

"Uh – yeah, I think so." Sam dug through his bag, flipped through his legal pad till he came to the right page. He read off the number, watched as Dean punched it in. "Come on, man, almost like what?"

"Almost like a serial killer."

Sam stared for a second. "You think a person's behind this somehow?"

Dean held up a finger as someone picked up on the other end of the line. Sam listened as he asked again about the nature hikes, the volunteers who led them. He gestured at Sam for a pencil and paper, jotted down names. "Great. Thank you," he finished. Hung up.

He turned the page around, pushed it across the table for Sam to read. Tapped the eraser on the third name down: Grant Chesley.

* * *

The Impala took the corner on two wheels. Sam resisted the urge to pray. "You gotta explain, Dean. How the hell did we get from cannibal giants to a human serial killer? You telling me this guy's been responsible for all these kids disappearing?"

"Not all of 'em." Dean's eyes never strayed from the road. "Probably only the older ones. These guys always have a type. That's why the sudden spike in disappearances: the Siants was doing its thing like it always has, maybe taking a couple of kids a year, but never too many. Then Chesley shows up, starts taking some for himself."

"What makes you so sure he's our guy?"

"I dunno, man. He lived close to Jake Heffron. He's had interactions with all the kids. He knows the woods, so he knows where to dump a body."

Sam didn't say a word.

Dean shot a glance at Sam, went on. "He's a creepy motherfucker who likes to dress in uniform, likes to hang out with little kids, and was just a bit too eager to chat with the F.B.I."

Silence.

"I don't know, man!" Dean exploded. "I just _know_, all right?"

"Okay, man," Sam said, hands held out in a placating gesture. "Just calm down, okay? We'll figure it out."

Dean gripped the wheel so tight he thought it would bend. Figure it out, my ass. More like humor the crazy while he's still got a four-thousand-pound weapon in his hands.

Didn't matter if Sam didn't believe him. He _knew_.

Dean executed the perfect cop's knock on Chesley's front door, a banging like the apocalypse was at hand. No answer. The blinds were drawn; Chesley's Crown Vic was not parked in the driveway. Dean jerked his head toward the side of the house and the hedge-lined path that led around to the back. Sam nodded and followed.

While Dean headed for the back door, Sam checked the windows of the detached garage, shook his head: no car there, either. Dean popped the lock. They went inside.

Same layout as the Heffrons' across the street: living room, kitchen, two small bedrooms. The place smelled rank, like cigars and bleach. It had the empty silence that confirmed no one was home.

The furnishings spoke of a Spartan existence, everything plain and cheap, a Wal-Mart life. Couch and loveseat, older TV. The bed was neatly made, no dirty clothes heaped in a corner or draped over a chair. No secret stash of porn hidden under the bed, either. The second bedroom held a treadmill and Bowflex machine, perfect for a wannabe cop looking to get buff. The attic was empty but for a few dusty boxes – miscellaneous sports equipment, an unused quesadilla maker, old tax records.

"Basement," Dean said. "It's always the basement."

He didn't care if Sam looked at him like he was nuts. He knew he was right.

It wasn't the dank root cellar he'd been expecting. Chesley's basement had been done up into a nice little den or home office. Old plaid-patterned couch and matching recliner, probably inherited from the guy's parents'. Nice new LCD TV. Laptop computer on the coffee table.

Dean pointed at the computer. "See what you can find," he told Sam. Then he went to work searching under the couch cushions, in the collection of DVDs lined up alphabetically on the TV stand shelves. Nothing at first. Then he got creative. Poked at the acoustic ceiling tiles. There was just enough space above the tiles to secret something away. He stood on the end table, grabbed the nearest lamp. Just a few tiles away was a stash of stuff. Dean jumped down from the table, popped out the right tile.

Abracadabra. A whole pile of porn came raining down.

"Holy shit," Sam said. He came over to stand next to Dean, toed at the pile. There were DVDs and VHS tapes, magazines, a spilled shoebox of Polaroids. All little boys. All looked to be in the eight-to-twelve age range.

Dean didn't bother with an I-told-you-so. Sam's face had gone chalk-white. If the bob of his Adam's apple was any indication, he was trying hard not to lose his lunch. "There's more of it on the computer," he said. "Password protected, but he had a damn Word file of all his user names and passwords."

"Any pictures of the missing kids?"

Sam shook his head. "I, uh, didn't look through them all. But the files were named by the date, so I checked the more recent ones."

"Well, we know he's a worthless piece of shit, but that's about all." Dean looked around the room one more time. "I don't think he's ever brought any kids here. Too many nosy neighbors around. I think he's got some other place where he does the dirty work. Let's get the hell out of here. See what we can dig up."

Sam glanced down at the heap of porn. "Think we oughta clean this up?"

Dean was already at the bottom of the stairs. He looked back, eyes too cool for what they'd just seen. "Let the fucker be scared," he said. "I want him to know I'm comin'."

* * *

Back at the cabin, the bear head watched Dean pace and Sam click through search engines. So far they'd found that Grant A. Chesley had moved to Colorado from Texas seven months before, the timing just right for the start of the Durango disappearances, and, Sam noted, the end of a similar string in San Antonio. So far, no clues to his current whereabouts, though. "Try the county auditor's site," Dean said. "Maybe he's got more property."

"Already on it," Sam said. Behind him, the shadow that was Dean moved in and out of his peripheral vision. He tried a property search for Grant Chesley but found only the house they already knew about. "No second property. Any other ideas?"

Dean stopped pacing. "Can you find his parents' names?"

Ten minutes later, they had it: a six-hundred square-foot cabin outside of town. The deed was in the name of Chesley's elderly mother, who currently resided in an area nursing home. While Sam checked their map, Dean pawed through their weapons bag. Came up with his Desert Eagle. Fucking majestic hand cannon. The perfect thing to scare the living shit out of someone. He looked it over with a feral grin.

"We should let the cops handle this, Dean." Sam stood on the other side of the bed, checked the clip in his Taurus. "People aren't part of our job description."

Dean didn't answer. He'd make sure that Chesley was their guy. He'd maybe give the asshole a chance to turn himself in. But he was gonna handle this tonight, one way or another.

Sam shook his head, yanked open the door. Dean followed, slipping the gun into his waistband, adjusting his jacket and shirt. As he pulled the door shut behind him, he huffed a laugh. The last time he'd used this gun, he recalled, had been the shtriga.

* * *

Chesley's cabin, oddly enough, was less than a mile from the one they'd used as a parking spot during their search of the woods. Dean parked again at that empty cabin, for symmetry's sake. They walked in the rest of the way.

The lights were on in Chesley's cabin. There were two windows and a door in the front, same in the back. Dean nodded for Sam to take the front. As he circled around to the back, he pulled his gun, flicked the safety off.

They'd agreed to take a look in the windows if they could, not go in guns blazing, play it cool. Dean edged up to the side of a window. The checkered curtains were drawn, but he got a glimpse of the room: a rough-hewn pine table, a camping lantern, a man's hands. A man's hands holding a buck knife, reverently cleaning blood from its blade.

Dean didn't think. Kicked in the door.

He went in screaming cop-speak: _hands where I can see 'em, don't move_. Chesley froze, hands up, eyes wide – wider still when Sam busted in the front, gun drawn.

"Where is he?" Dean yelled.

Chesley's hands went up a little higher. "Whoa, guys, I don't know what you're talking about. What's going on?"

"You know goddamn well what this is about, Chesley. Where the fuck is he?"

Dean's eyes flicked toward the table, the blood-smeared knife, the red-spattered rag Chesley had been using to clean it. The digital camera.

"Get up," he said through clenched teeth.

Chesley just sat there. Sam took a step forward. "Dean – " he started.

"Get the fuck up. _Now!_"

Chesley stood so fast his chair tumbled over. He scrabbled back against the wall. Dean followed, stalking slowly, gun held straight, till Chesley didn't have anywhere else to go and the barrel was flush against the guy's forehead. "The kid you took." Dean's voice started out under control, rose with each word. "Where the fuck is he, Chesley?" Red faced and spitting now, so far gone he couldn't even remember the kid's name.

"Dean," Sam said, a warning note in his tone.

"Bedroom," Chesley whispered. "In the bedroom."

"Sam, watch this fuck."

Dean left Chesley under Sam's guard, backed toward the other side of the cabin and the lone interior door, not overly eager to take his gun off this piece of shit. He turned the knob, let the door swing open.

The boy was bound on the bed, belly down, spread-eagle, his pale skin smeared with blood. His face was turned toward the door, sightless dark eyes already filming over. Dean pressed a hand to the boy's neck though he knew he wouldn't find a pulse. The body was still warm. The room smelled of blood and sex and shit.

For the next few seconds, he was only aware of the gun in his hand. Heavy. Solid. Then the gun was pointed at Chesley's head again. "How many kids have you killed?"

Chesley licked his lips. "Okay, I know you guys are going for good cop, bad cop here, but I know my rights! F.B.I. or not, I'm not saying another word till I talk to a lawyer!"

"Just one problem." Dean grinned, rammed the gun against Chesley's cheekbone. "We're not F.B.I."

A hint of contempt in those pale eyes. "Who the fuck are you, then?"

"Your worst fuckin' nightmare." Dean slammed the butt of his gun into Chesley's face. Blood and teeth sprayed out; the guy went down hard, cupping his mouth. Dean lifted his hand. Looked at the blood smeared there. Crouched down to wipe it off on Chesley's shirt.

He pointed the gun. Looked down at Chesley. "How many?"

Chesley shook his head, stayed silent.

Dean's boot slammed the guy's ribs. "Try again."

Chesley doubled over, gasped for air. Dean waited. Finally the answer ground out, "Four."

"Bullshit." Another kick. "That's why you moved from San Antonio, isn't it – the cops were getting too close. How many?"

"Okay, okay!" Chesley held up both hands. "Nine!"

"You sure?" Another kick. Dean sure was getting his money out of these steel toed boots.

"Yes! Jesus! Nine, I swear!" Blood sprayed out with the words. Chesley's eyes squeezed shut; he dragged in a ragged breath.

"Dean." Sam grabbed at his arm, kept his voice low. "That's enough, man. We can tie him up, call the cops when we're long gone from here."

"Go look in that bedroom, Sam." Dean pointed with his gun. "It'll never be enough."

They stared each other down for a moment. Then Sam turned, went to the other room to look.

Curiosity, Sammy. Dean heard gagging from the other room. He didn't want his brother to see that. But he wanted him to understand.

Without a gun aimed at his head, Chesley seemed to regain some composure. He pushed himself up to sit against the wall, arms wrapped around his stomach. Blood still trickled from his mouth. "So you guys, you're what – vigilantes? Righting the wrongs of the world?"

"Something like that."

"You just don't get it, do you? None of you get it."

Dean stepped closer, the gun held loosely at his side. "You're raping and murdering children. What else is there to get?"

Chesley rasped a laugh. "Oh, so you're one of _those_. Probably, what, got monkeyed around with when you were a kid, so now you take it out on everyone else?"

"Shut up," Dean muttered. He didn't even know why he was listening. Should've just kicked the rest of the guy's teeth out, made it a little harder for the fucker to talk.

"Who was it?" Chesley asked. "Daddy? Uncle? Gym coach?"

Dean's hand tightened on the grips of his gun; he paced the small room. His rage was a buzz in the back of his skull, getting louder by the minute.

Chesley spat and grinned, showing off a bloody mouthful of jagged teeth. "I bet you were beautiful back then. Those long eyelashes. Pretty mouth. Cocksucking lips. But I'm sure you've heard that before – "

The first shot blew out the back of Chesley's head in a spray of blood and bone, brought Sam running. The second got the guy's throat, spurting arterial blood. The next seven shots were pure overkill but felt goddamn good.

The trigger clicked on the empty chamber. Dean's ears were ringing. Bluish smoke hung in the lantern's light, the scent of cordite heavy in the air. Dean sucked in a deep breath of it. Better than the other smells.

He started picking up shell casings. The first one he touched was still hot, burned his hand. Sam never said a word, just wiped his sleeve across his mouth, tucked his gun back in his pants, and bent to help find all the brass.

When they were done, Dean found Chesley's can of kerosene while Sam salted the bodies. He doused the main room thoroughly. Paused in the doorway of that six-by-nine bedroom before splashing fuel over the red-and-white checked curtains, the soiled sheets, the body still tied to the bed. He took one last look at the frozen expression of terror, at the boy's empty eyes, before smashing the lamp against the floor, watching it all go up in flames.

His name was Noah Richards.

* * *

The desert rolled by at eighty miles an hour, roadside sagebrush caught in the headlights' glare, towering mesas just shadows in the night. Dean stared straight ahead, hands tight on the wheel. Durango was almost two hundred miles in the rearview and he hadn't touched the radio once.

The silence was getting to Sam. He and Dean had exchanged maybe ten words since Chesley's cabin, most of which concerned packing up and getting the hell out of Dodge. Not like he really knew what to say. He was still busy replaying the night in his mind: the boy's bound body, lifeless and bloody, the blank look on Dean's face as he pulled the trigger again and again.

Sam still wasn't sure what bothered him more – the things Chesley had said, or Dean's reaction to them.

Another mile flashed by. Sam couldn't take the silence anymore. "What kind of person can do that to a kid?" he asked. _Who did it to you, Dean?_

Dean was quiet for a long moment, breathing in the stink of arson on his clothes: kerosene and smoke. He didn't quite trust himself to form a sane answer. He watched the dotted yellow lines slip by, let the Impala's low rumble soak into his bones. Finally he just said, "I dunno, man. Sick fucks." Even that wasn't exactly what he meant: to say they were sick implied there was a cure.

Dean's hands ached from gripping the wheel; he forced himself to breathe deep, unclench his jaw, loosen his grasp. He couldn't look at Sam. Didn't want to see what might be in his brother's eyes – doubt. Fear. Pity.

He rolled the window down a crack, letting in a rush of cold wind. Flipped on the radio, scanned the dial till he found a station playing the Allman Brothers, "Midnight Rider." He could do this. Durango was behind them. The job was done. He'd keep heading south through the night, hit Flagstaff, maybe keep going toward Phoenix. He knew a couple of decent bars in each town, good to make some money or just toss back a few beers. Maybe he'd find a fight or a fuck. Maybe it didn't matter which.

Along the way, he'd look for desolate spots, deep gullies, gas station dumpsters, places to start getting rid of the Desert Eagle, piece by piece.

He'd hate to see it go. But it had damn sure done its job.

* * *

**A/N #2:** On monster sources: I originally found mention of the creature in this story in the book _Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth_ by Carol Rose. According to the short entry therein, this creature was known as "Siats," and the females of the race (breed? Whatever.) were known as bapets. I could find very little on "Siats," until I came across the book _Ute Tales_ by Anne M. Smith, which listed several versions of legends about a creature called "Siants." Smith was an ethnologist who collected Ute legends while living among the tribe in 1936-37. Whether the discrepancy between "Siats" and "Siants" is a typo or a difference in translation, I can't say. I went with "Siants" since the tales in Smith's book were straight from the tellers, rather than cited from another book.

On the time frame: According to a close-up of zombie-chick's phone, the events of "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" begin on August 22. In _Supernatural: The Official Companion, Season 2_, however, the temporary marker on her grave says she was buried on October 16. Things like this drive me nuts. So I pretty much split the difference and set this vaguely sometime in the fall.

The original title of this story was "A Call for Blood," from the Hatebreed song of the same name. If you read the lyrics, I imagine you'll understand why.


End file.
